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Up Close and Personal: Peter Sagan’s Specialized Bicycle

By Adam Marsal

Once again, Peter Sagan of the BORA – Hansgrohe team delivered a green jersey to the finish line of the Tour. A part of such a great job was done by his custom Specialized S-Works Venge Disc bike. We were curious what kind of machine brought one of the best cyclists in the world to the overall score of 467 points so we checked it out.

Well, let’s start with the frame. Peter has opted for the size of 56 cm. His height is 184 cm, the saddle height from the bottom bracket is 75 cm and the distance from the tip of the saddle nose to the centre of the handlebars 62,5 cm. The frame is 200 grams lighter than its predecessor and the fork weights 250 grams only. The bike’s overall weight is only 7,46 kg.

The bike’s not only light but also aerodynamic, making it 8 seconds faster over 40km time trial. As always, it’s a compromise between aerodynamics, weight, and stiffness. In this case, the engineers managed to blend the best of all characteristics. The bike is much faster and lighter than the previous model.

The teal colour is allegedly inspired by the Mediterranean Sea, close to where Sagan lives in Monaco, and has also something to do with a reminiscence of Slovakia. On the chainstay, three bands with the years 2015, 2016, and 2017 are obviously reminding everybody of Sagan’s world championship victories. On the top tube, there stand the “PS” initials in a handwritten typography. There are some slogans scattered over the frame, like the Sagan’s quote: “If I don’t have yellow, I have green. If I don’t have green, I have a rainbow,” and on the bottom bracket you can find a simple “We’ll see.” sentence

The handlebars and stem combination is 107 grams lighter than in the previous model. The stem length is 145 mm, which is certainly one of the longest stems in World Tour peloton. Peter holds his S-Works Aerofly 2 aerodynamic shaped handlebars that are 42 cm wide and watches the Wahoo Element Bolt GPS navigation fitted to the front part of the stem. The bars have a low frontal profile and no tape on the top for achieving the maximum aerodynamic effect.

The shifters mounted to the handlebars are Shimano DuraAce Di2 9170, getting along with disc brakes. While the front rotor has a diameter of 160 mm, the rear one has 140 mm. There are some more parts from the DuraAce groupset including front and rear derailleur, chain, crankset or pedals and the rest comes exclusively from Specialized and its wheel company Roval. The Shimano DuraAce cassette has a range from 11 to 28 teeth while the chainring combination is 54/42, teeth which is rather an uncommon option. The power meter is made by Specialized. The water bottles are fitted to a pair of carbon fibre bottle cages.

Peter Sagan during Stage 10, Annecy – le Grand Bornand (158,5km) on July 17th, 2018 © Profimedia, AFP

TL; DR – an exquisite machine for one exquisite Slovak.